Happy Friday friends 👋

What goes around comes around, or at least it might do. News of Ninja's potential interest in Delivery Hero's MENA assets this week was surprising, not the logic (obviously wanting to acquire either HungerStation or Talabat is a no-brainer if you can afford it), but the audacity.

Neither of those crown jewels are going to come cheap, and both are considerably larger than Ninja itself, which raises the rather fundamental question of how exactly they'd fund the raid.

HungerStation, if carved out, would be a coup for a company that needs to horizontally diversify and has so far failed to make any meaningful dent in Saudi food delivery, a market that has largely consolidated into a three-player affair between HungerStation, Keeta, and Jahez.

Who knows, maybe it'll happen. Either way, it's been tremendous publicity for a company that remains gung-ho on an IPO, and you don't get that kind of coverage for free (or maybe you do, if the FT runs with it).

Elsewhere, it's been a strong week for Egyptian fintech. MNT-Halan has hit a $1.4 billion valuation with Al Ahly Capital leading a new round, Blnk has raised $37.1 million to expand POS consumer financing, and Thndr has received initial approval for a Saudi brokerage licence with a Q1 2027 launch in its sights.

On the venture side, former Deliveroo head Anis Harb's Algebra AI has emerged from stealth with $7 million and an interesting cap table, to bring managed AI operations to the GCC mid-market, and Jordan's ISSF has committed $7 million to Endeavor Catalyst V.

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MNT-Halan (🇪🇬 Egypt), a fintech platform covering consumer and business lending, payments, e-wallets and e-commerce, has raised an undisclosed round led by Al Ahly Capital, valuing the company at $1.4B, with a second closing expected.

Blnk (🇪🇬 Egypt), a POS consumer financing platform serving 1M+ customers across 3,000+ merchants, has raised $37.1M comprising a $12.5M Series A led by Algebra Ventures and $24.6M in local debt facilities, with participation from SANAD Fund, Endeavor Catalyst, and EIIC.

Algebra AI (🇦🇪 UAE), a managed AI services firm that builds and operates AI systems for GCC mid-market businesses, has raised $7M, backed by Infinity Constellation, BECO Capital, Silicon Badia, and Waseel Investments.

Agenz (🇲🇦 Morocco), a proptech combining AI property valuation, market data, and a transactional platform for buyers, has raised $5M in an oversubscribed Seed round, co-led by Breega, Attijariwafa Ventures, and Saviu Ventures.

Zuvees (🇦🇪 UAE), an AI-powered cross-border gifting platform for consumers and businesses, has raised $1.6M as part of an ongoing Series A, backed by IvyCap Ventures.

🇯🇴 Jordan's ISSF has committed $7M to Endeavor Catalyst V, a more than threefold increase from its $2M commitment to Catalyst III in 2020. Endeavor's co-investment vehicle invests exclusively in Endeavor Entrepreneurs, taking no board seats and never leading rounds, with a portfolio spanning nearly 400 companies across 37 countries including Tabby, Insider and Flutterwave. Fund V follows the $292 million Catalyst IV closed in 2022, with TechCrunch reporting last year that the new vehicle was targeting $300 million, a close that would push the firm's total AUM past $800 million.

🇸🇦 Saudi Venture Capital (SVC) has invested in Khwarizmi Ventures Fund II, the early-stage VC's second vehicle which completed a first close at $70M+ in February against a $100-120M target. Fund II will deploy $1-5M cheques into seed and Series A startups across the GCC, with at least half allocated to Saudi-based companies. Khwarizmi's Fund I backed more than 30 startups including Tamara, Calo, TruKKer and HALA, with five exits and distributions already returned to LPs.

🥷 Saudi unicorn Ninja is considering a bid for parts of Delivery Hero's Middle East business, the FT reported, adding a third suitor to a contest involving Uber and DoorDash. Ninja, valued at $1.5B last year, would initially focus on HungerStation, which would be easier to integrate and face fewer regulatory hurdles. The bid would carry a founder-return storyline, as Ebrahim Al-Jassim, who founded HungerStation in Dammam before being terminated by Delivery Hero in 2019 amid a four-year legal dispute, is listed as a Ninja co-founder in external sources though conspicuously absent from the company's own materials.

🇸🇦 Saudi customer engagement platform Unifonic has acquired Turkey's Segmentify, an AI-powered personalisation and marketing technology company. The deal integrates Unifonic's communication solutions with Segmentify's behavioural analysis and digital experience personalisation, aiming to build a unified platform for automated marketing decisions across digital channels. Terms were not disclosed.

🇯🇴 Jordanian edtech JoAcademy has acquired AI education platform NoNerds for $140K. NoNerds allows students to ask text or voice questions and receive AI-generated answers based on lecture content, with more than 12,000 users across Jordanian universities. JoAcademy, which raised $28M last year from Rua Ventures and a consortium of Jordanian banks, serves 2.1 million students across Jordan, Iraq, Palestine and Saudi Arabia and plans to integrate NoNerds' AI capabilities into its platform.

🎟️ Saudi events platform webook.com has acquired Portugal's SmartMove, marking its first expansion into Europe. SmartMove, founded more than 30 years ago, provides event technology to Portuguese football clubs, the national federation and the domestic league. Webook.com operates across 180+ countries with more than 17 million users. Terms were not disclosed.

📈 Egypt's Thndr has received initial approval for a Saudi brokerage licence, with CEO Ahmad Hammouda telling Asharq Business the platform is targeting a Q1 2027 launch. The Cairo-based investment app, backed by YC, Prosus and Tiger Global, was ranked the largest of 120 EGX brokerages by value traded in the first four months of 2026 with 12.9% market share and $1B in assets under custody. Thndr already holds an Abu Dhabi licence and has applied in Dubai, with Hammouda targeting seven markets by 2030.

🇨🇦 Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala has participated in KOHO's C$130M round at a C$1.33B valuation, backing the Canadian fintech as it pursues a federal banking licence. KOHO, founded in 2014, serves more than 2.5 million Canadians with spending and savings accounts, credit-building tools and overdraft protection. Other new investors include Shopify founder Tobi Lütke and Affirm COO Michael Linford. The round brings total funding to C$507M.

🛰️ QIA participated in ICEYE's $1.15B Series F, joining a round led by General Atlantic for the Finnish space intelligence company. ICEYE operates the largest constellation of synthetic aperture radar satellites, capturing Earth imagery around the clock in all weather conditions for government surveillance applications. The funding will expand satellite production from 50 to 100 units per year by 2028.

🇰🇼 Kuwait Investment Authority has joined KKR, Nvidia and Vistra to launch Helix Digital Infrastructure, a $10B venture to provide infrastructure for AI hyperscalers. Former AWS CEO Adam Selipsky will lead the company, which will invest in data centre development, power transmission and fibre connectivity. Nvidia will advise on energy-efficient data centre design while Vistra provides power. KIA has been active in AI infrastructure, also backing Brookfield's $10B AI fund and anchoring the $30B AI Infrastructure Partnership with MGX, BlackRock and Microsoft.

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